... the date of the real or fictive earthquake, according Dante precisely in the time

Five hours from this hour yesterday,
one thousand and two hundred sixty-six
years passed since that roadway was shattered here.

(Inf. XXI 112-114)

Dante knows even the hour, as it seems.

Ah, I note my mistake ... I'd interpreted the year 1266, but Dante meant 1300-1266 = 34th year of Jesus, the day of his death, when an earthquake occurred. Sorry, that I've confused you, and sorry, you had explained it already.
see also ...http://www.princeton.edu/~dante/ebdsa/js.html

But right, there's the coincidence, that Dante was in a similar age as Jesus in this Jubilee year 1300, just a little bit older, reaching the age of 33 in the year 1299.

Dante was born in Florence, Italy. The exact date of his birth is unknown, although it is generally believed to be around 1265. This can be deduced from autobiographic allusions in the Divine Comedy. Its first section, the Inferno, begins, "Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita" ("Midway upon the journey of our life"), implying that Dante was around 35 years old, since the average lifespan according to the Bible (Psalm 89:10, Vulgate) is 70 years; and since his imaginary travel to the nether world took place in 1300, he was most probably born around 1265. Some verses of the Paradiso section of the Divine Comedy also provide a possible clue that he was born under the sign of Gemini: "As I revolved with the eternal twins, I saw revealed, from hills to river outlets, the threshing-floor that makes us so ferocious" (XXII 151–154). In 1265, the sun was in Gemini between approximately May 11 and June 11.

Somewhere else (I don't remember the place) I remember suspicions, where the birth calculation went down (as a possibility) to 1260.

1260

... was the year, for which Joachim de Fiore had expected the end of the world (or at least a dramatic change).

The mystical basis of his teaching is his doctrine of the "Eternal Gospel," founded on an interpretation of the text in Revelation xiv, 6.

His theories can be considered millenarian; he believed that history, by analogy with the Trinity, was divided into three fundamental epochs:

The Age of the Father, corresponding to the Old Testament, characterized by obedience of mankind to the Rules of God;
The Age of the Son, between the advent of Christ and 1260, represented by the New Testament, when Man became the son of God;
The Age of the Holy Spirit, impending (in 1260), when mankind was to come in direct contact with God, reaching the total freedom preached by the Christian message. The Kingdom of the Holy Spirit, a new dispensation of universal love, would proceed from the Gospel of Christ, but transcend the letter of it. In this new Age the ecclesiastical organization would be replaced and the Order of the Just would rule the Church. This Order of the Just was later identified with the Franciscan order by his follower Gerardo of Borgo San Donnino.
According to Joachim, only in this third Age will it be possible to really understand the words of God in its deepest meanings, and not merely literally. He concluded that this age would begin in 1260 based on the Book of Revelation (verses 11:3 and 12:6, which mention "one thousand two hundred and sixty days").[3] In this year, instead of the parousia (second Advent of Christ), a new Epoch of peace and concord would begin, thus making the hierarchy of the Church unnecessary.

Joachim distinguished between the "reign of justice" or of "law", in an imperfect society, and the "reign of freedom" in a perfect society.[4]

Fiore's ideas are said to have influenced Dante.

****************

The whole 13th century seems to have been a little bit crazy about religious matters, more than other centuries. There was an increase of population in 11th century which resulted in military action (crusades) against the outside.
With success, but the success couldn't proceed during 12th century. In 13th century suddenly the Mongols proved, that the expansion to the East was limited and in 1290 Akkon was finished. The number of the participants at the crusades had become much smaller then.

A religious explanation ...

Joachim believes that history is trinitarian, consisting of three status or eras, as he calls them. The first status is the time of the Father, and that's the Old Testament, lasting for 42 generations. The second status is the time of the second person, the Son, and the time of the New Testament, also 42 generations. Joachim's calculations led him to believe that he was living at the very end of that period, and that no more than two generations at most--that is, no more than 60 years, and possibly less--would see the end of the second status. The end of the second status, of course, would mark the seventh head of the dragon, that is, the Antichrist, and Antichrist's persecution. But for Joachim, that wasn't the end of history. A third status, the status of the Holy Spirit, a time of contemplative ecclesiastical utopia, was dawning. ...

...

A good example of Joachim's reading the signs of the times would be his emphasis of the figure of Saladin, and Saladin's reconquest of Jerusalem in the year 1187. When Joachim comes to interpreting the 12th chapter of Revelation, he sees the seven-headed dragon as indicating seven heads of concrete historical persecutors through the course of history, and not just as a general symbol of evil. He identifies the sixth head with Saladin--he Islamic leader who reconquered the city of Jerusalem from the Crusaders in the year 1187--and sees him as immediately preceding the coming seventh head, who will be the Antichrist, the last and greatest persecutor of the second status of the Church.
Joachim had an international reputation in the late 12th century. We know that he functioned as what I have called an apocalyptic advisor to a number of the popes of the 1180s and the 1190s. Despite living on a lonely mountaintop in his monastery in Calabria, the prophet's fame had spread very wide. And so it shouldn't surprise us that King Richard the Lion Hearted, when he's on his way to the Third Crusade and he has to spend the winter in Sicily (because of course you can't sail during the winter on the Mediterranean), when he stops there in Messina, he calls for Joachim, the famous prophet, and asks for his prophetic advice about what will happen. And Joachim travels to the palace there in Messina, in the winter of 1190-1191. And we have the accounts of his preaching to King Richard, and Richard's questions to him.

Fiore's "Expositio in Apocalipsim" (Exposition of the Book of Revelation) was finished around 1196-9, so after a crusade, which didn't fulfill the expectations.

****************

You had asked ...

Your question, here, raises an issue, which has continually perplexed me—viz. the association of the number “13” with the Tarot’s Death trump. Why?

Maybe cause Jesus had 12 followers and was the 13th (and the traitor Judas the 12th, who caused the death).

Maybe cause there were 12 Olympian gods and Hercules became the 13th.

Maybe cause there were 13 moons necessary in the combined solar-lunar calendar, one of the 13 moons not being present in all years (in 7 of 19 present; Meton cycle of 19 years).

Maybe cause the Egyptians has 12x30 days for a year and added 5 unlucky days.

***************

Addition to Joyce:
I've read in his biography, that Joyce had learned Italian by reading Dante. In Trieste short after 1904 he had contact to a Florentine family, and the man of it agreed to exchange lessons in Italian against lessons in English.
The Florentine noted, that Joyce knew a lot of old-fashioned words, expressions, which were lost in modern Italian. Thanks to Dante.

Thank you for the reference. In this passage, Dante recounts how, on the morning of Easter Sunday, he and Virgil make their way by ferry to the island, in the southern hemisphere, where Mount Purgatory resides. Among the ship’s passengers, Dante encounters an old acquaintance in the shade of Casella. He wonders that it has taken so long after his death for Casella to arrive at this point in the journey. Casella responds:

No wrong has been done me if he [the Celestial Pilot] who takes both when and whom it pleases him oftimes hath denied to me this passage; for of a just will his own is made.

Casella then, presumably, alludes to Boniface’ ongoing Jubilee in Rome, which had begun three months earlier during the Christmas of 1299 and which allowed for the remission of sins for those pilgrims, who attended:

Truly for three months he has taken with all peace whoso has wished to enter. Wherefore I who was now turned to the seashore where the water of the Tiber grows salt was benignantly received by him.

Huck wrote:
Somewhere else (I don't remember the place) I remember suspicions, where the birth calculation [for Dante] went down (as a possibility) to 1260.

If memory serves, Dante in his De Monarchia observed that the lifespan of man is 60-80 years and that he reaches his prime (at mid-life) between the ages of 30 and 40. Using this as a reference point and assuming the Commedia takes place in 1300, Dante could, thus, have been born ca. 1260-70.

Huck wrote:
[1260] was the year, for which Joachim de Fiore had expected the end of the world (or at least a dramatic change).

When 1260 passed without event, the date was shifted to 1290, et al. Additionally, by the mid-thirteenth century Joachimist writings anticipated the advent of an angelic pope and/or world emperor, who would reform the Church and prepare the way for the new Age of the Holy Spirit. The world emperor motif figured highly in Hapsburg and Valois propaganda in the Renaissance. Dante’s passages respecting Emperor Henry VII of Luxemburg were reinterpreted to apply to other candidates—for instance, Henri II, Henri III, and Henri IV of France. But all died before they could fulfill prophecy—Henri II in a freak accident during a jousting tournament, wherein, a piece of wood pierced his eye; Henri III (the last Valois king) by the hand of the psychopathic monk-assassin, Jacques Clement; and Henri IV (the first Bourbon king) through the fanatical assassin, François Ravaillac. If Dame Frances Yates is correct, there were apparently some hopes as well for Prince Henry Stuart, eldest son of James I of England. However, Prince Henry died prematurely at age 18 from typhoid fever, predeceasing his father.

Huck wrote:
You had asked ...

Your question, here, raises an issue, which has continually perplexed me—viz. the association of the number “13” with the Tarot’s Death trump. Why?

Maybe cause Jesus had 12 followers and was the 13th (and the traitor Judas the 12th, who caused the death).

Maybe cause there were 12 Olympian gods and Hercules became the 13th.

Maybe cause there were 13 moons necessary in the combined solar-lunar calendar, one of the 13 moons not being present in all years (in 7 of 19 present; Meton cycle of 19 years).

Maybe cause the Egyptians has 12x30 days for a year and added 5 unlucky days.

I’m more inclined to believe that the myth of “13” being bad or unlucky in Western culture derives from the Tarot’s use of this number for Death—not the other way around. And, as you say, there is the association between Christ and this number.

Dante opposed Bonifacio in real life around 1300. Bonifacio seems to have preferred Dante, but if Dante preferred ever Bonifacio, isn't so sure, as it seems to me. Anyway, Bonifacio was dead with 1303 and it wasn't very opportune to have stood at Bonicio's side.

When 1260 passed without event, the date was shifted to 1290, et al. Additionally, by the mid-thirteenth century Joachimist writings anticipated the advent of an angelic pope and/or world emperor, who would reform the Church and prepare the way for the new Age of the Holy Spirit. The world emperor motif figured highly in Hapsburg and Valois propaganda in the Renaissance. Dante’s passages respecting Emperor Henry VII of Luxemburg were reinterpreted to apply to other candidates—for instance, Henri II, Henri III, and Henri IV of France. But all died before they could fulfill prophecy—Henri II in a freak accident during a jousting tournament, wherein, a piece of wood pierced his eye; Henri III (the last Valois king) by the hand of the psychopathic monk-assassin, Jacques Clement; and Henri IV (the first Bourbon king) through the fanatical assassin, François Ravaillac. If Dame Frances Yates is correct, there were apparently some hopes as well for Prince Henry Stuart, eldest son of James I of England. However, Prince Henry died prematurely at age 18 from typhoid fever, predeceasing his father.

This might have appeared in context of emperor Fredrick II, whose death was kept in silence for some time. So it was believed, that he would come back. In reality indeed a Fredrick II appeared in Neuss (= Novesia), and claimed to be the king. Tile Kolup, also known as Dietrich Holzschuh, 1284 in Neuss, also known as Novesia. Similar wrong emperors appeared occasionally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tile_Kolup

The myth about Fredrick II was then transported Fredrick I Barbarossa (wiki says, since 16th century), who drowned in a river during his crusade. He sleeps in a cave in the Kyffhäuser mountain and gets a rather long beard. Every 100 years he awakes, and looks, if it is the right time to reappear. English wiki states, that also King Arthur has such a story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyffh%C3%A4user

Also to Charlemain (German wiki)

I’m more inclined to believe that the myth of “13” being bad or unlucky in Western culture derives from the Tarot’s use of this number for Death—not the other way around. And, as you say, there is the association between Christ and this number.

Osiris was cut to 14th pieces by Seth, Isis gathered the pieces. She found only 13 and replaced the missing genital with a sort of wood, as far I remember. The pieces were used for sacred locations and their temples as relics.

Similar numbers (13-14) seem to have occurred in the Zeus Zagreus cult, which also had its relation to death and rebirth.

The Christian world interpretation also belongs to these death and rebirth interpretations, if one looks precisely. The birth was mythologically interpreted, and also the death. The difference between Eastern and Pentecost is 50 days. The difference between Eastern and Ascension is 40 days, the difference between Eastern and Fronleichnam 60 days.

"14" is also the difference between 50 (holy number of heaven, seen as 7x7+1) and 64 (8x8). 14= 2x7, used as "7 heavens, 7 earths" in some Hebrew mythology.

In my James Joyce biography I met T.S. Eliot, so I looked him up. He has a Tarot scene in a poem "The Waste Land", which once made people rather enthusiastic.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations. 50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Huck wrote:
This might have appeared in context of emperor Fredrick II, whose death was kept in silence for some time. So it was believed, that he would come back. In reality indeed a Fredrick II appeared in Neuss (= Novesia), and claimed to be the king. Tile Kolup, also known as Dietrich Holzschuh, 1284 in Neuss, also known as Novesia. Similar wrong emperors appeared occasionally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tile_Kolup

The myth about Fredrick II was then transported Fredrick I Barbarossa (wiki says, since 16th century), who drowned in a river during his crusade. He sleeps in a cave in the Kyffhäuser mountain and gets a rather long beard. Every 100 years he awakes, and looks, if it is the right time to reappear. English wiki states, that also King Arthur has such a story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyffh%C3%A4user

Also to Charlemain (German wiki)

Yes, Frederick II (1194-1250) certainly played a prominent role in contemporary apocalyptic prophecies either as a messianic figure or the Antichrist in context of the imperial-papal conflicts of the age. You no doubt recall that Pope Gregory IX (r. 1227-41) excommunicated Frederick on two occasions and branded him a heretic. On the second occasion, the Emperor’s supporters responded by denouncing the Pope as the anticipated Antichrist. This was echoed by the widely circulated tradition, generally considered apocryphal, that Joachim, himself, in his 1190/91 interview with King Richard the Lionheart linked the Antichrist with a future pope. On the other hand, much hope had apparently been placed by Joachimists in the sympathetic hermit-pope, Celestine V (r. 5 July – 13 December 1294) as the pastor angelicus—a recurring figure, which also drew from the myth of the sleeping king or prophet under the mountain. The elderly Celestine, however, was reputedly tricked or coerced into abdicating after five months by his successor, Boniface VIII, and then imprisoned until his death amidst rumors of torture and murder in 1296, adding to the latter’s repute for unholy wickedness.

The motif of the sleeping king or prophet under the mountain is sufficiently old and widespread to make attributing a source of influence difficult. Another figure—in this case, religious—worth mentioning in this respect given his high profile in Joachimist expectations (and Dante’s Commedia) is John the Evangelist, who purportedly sleeps in a cave in Ephesus until the time of the Apocalypse. On the negative side, a similar myth purportedly revolved around the Emperor Nero shortly after his death, albeit I believe his link by Biblical commentators with “666” or “616” represents a relatively recent development (the 18th Century?) and Joachim identified him with the dragon’s second head. However, I recall a rather (unintentionally) humorous bit of anti-English propaganda circulated in context of the European wars of religion in which the infernal Antichrist, Merlin, was said to have emerged from the bowels of the earth during an earthquake, which struck England, as well as the north of France and Flanders on Easter, 6 April 1580. Presumably, the negative characterization given the Arthurian mage, here, in some part reflects the use of pseudepigraphic Merlin prophecies by various European nationals for antipapal propaganda from the latter 13th Century, forward.

Returning to Dante’s Commedia, we find Joachim di Fiore in Paradiso’s Fourth Circle of the Sun (Prudence/Wisdom) for prophecy. In contrast, based on comments by his son, Jacopo Alighieri, Dante is widely held to be referring to Celestine V, when he remarks on seeing in the Vestibule of Hell set aside for the Uncommitted, be it mortal or angel “the shadow of that man, who out of cowardice made the great refusal” (Inf. III). Interestingly, Frederick II is placed in Inferno’s Sixth Circle for Heresy—viz. for the Epicurean belief that the soul does not survive death. Guy P. Raffa (2002-2007) comments:

Apart from Farinata's mention of him here in the circle of heresy (Inf. 10.119), the emperor Frederick II was important to Dante as the last in the line of reigning Holy Roman Emperors . . . . In placing Frederick among the heretics, Dante is likely following the accusations of the emperor's enemies. Elsewhere Dante praises Frederick--along with his son Manfred--as a paragon of nobility and integrity (De vulgari eloquentia 1.12.4). http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/tex ... f1001.html

Just as a short follow-up, it is interesting to speculate on how the imperial-papal conflict as an historical phenomenon may have been vested along metaphorical lines with additional or more nuanced meanings over time.

Take, for example, the Minchiate Etruria and its three Papi of the Grand Duke, Western Emperor, and Eastern Emperor. Trump II, Grand Duke, features a lion—an animal/emblem associated with the papacy. Trump III, Western Emperor, features an eagle—an imperial heraldic animal. Further, both animals—the lion and eagle—figure prominently as polar opposites in alchemy. In contrast, Trump IV, Eastern Emperor, has for its heraldic device a six-pointed star, suggesting the theme of reconciliation or marriage. By comparison, we have the New Testament sisters, Mary and Martha—counterparts to the Old Testament’s Rachel and Leah—as traditional personifications of the contemplative and active life, whereas, the Virgin Mary in this context has for her symbol the six-pointed star, being the superior of the three. On the other hand, the narrative contained in the deck’s Trump V, Love, may to some extent recall contemporary portrayals of the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine. In addition to the ring, another attribute of St. Catherine of Alexandria is, of course, the Wheel.